Games of the Heart (Crimson Romance) (15 page)

I rounded the corner to the foyer at about eighty-five miles per hour and skidded to a stop. “Tom? Tom. And bearing gifts?” His hands were filled with Starbucks cups and with the instinct of someone whose caffeine levels had dipped to zero, or maybe that was my common sense, I reached for one and would have reached for him, but for the ladies’ auxiliary that was in the foyer, getting ready to take food to the mission.

“Good time for a break? I’m just getting off duty.”

“You look terrible,” I blurted. It was a lie. He was gorgeous, and I forgave myself for lying in order to protect me from being even more dazzled than I appeared.

“A little honesty goes a long way, you know.” The stubble on his face could have sanded paint off a wall, and sweat had circled beneath the arms of his tan uniform.

As I said, he was yummy. “Of course, this isn’t any of my business, but do you wear a bulletproof vest beneath that poly-blend shirt?”

“Yeah, why? Only in the field. Concerned for me?”

“Do bureaucratic sadists work for the city? Have they no idea that polyester doesn’t breathe?”

He bent over and sniffed his armpits, wiggled his eyebrows and said, “No Police Fashion Award?”

“If I ran the city, you’d be wearing cotton. But you’re not here to discuss polyester, are you?”

He took my hand for the merest of seconds, and we sat on the bench in the foyer. Honest to Pete, his eyes drew me in worse than the Godiva chocolate shop in the mall. “You deserved to know.”

Oh, boy, here it comes, I mumbled, I hoped to myself. “You’re allergic to preachers.” I’d heard it before and didn’t need it again. I started to stand, and he grabbed my arm.

“Allergic? Huh? Where are you going? I wanted to tell you I didn’t come yesterday because I worked a second shift. A detective had twins. I filled in. It was a busy night. Then had paperwork. Those fake cops on TV never do the paperwork. Heck, they arrest a felon, read him his rights, stick him in the slammer, and are lifting a cold one by commercial break. In reality? There are reports, and even if most of it is computerized, it’s careful work. If a cop doesn’t dot an I or cross a T, the dirt bag that maimed or murdered or molested walks out of the station. Drives me batty.”

“That’s what I thought,” I fibbed. There was no way on God’s green earth I was going to admit I thought he’d jilted me. “Hey, what happened? Your knuckles are bruised. They were okay on Saturday.”

“Don’t change the subject.” But he did look at his hands. “This is nothing. Well, just an intoxicated and belligerent citizen said no when I asked that he drop the knife. But Jane, you have a right to tell me to take a hike. I should have called. Give me a second chance?”

“You don’t have to report to me, Captain. But honestly — ” Oh, it gets sick here — I fluttered my eyelashes. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and I was a jerk. “ — I’m an advocate for the three strikes law. You’re only down by one.” I laughed. He did, too, at my lame joke. This was good. I figured he had to be in his mid-forties, and this time I looked closer at his left hand, which was about two and one-quarter inches from my right thigh. Still no ring and no ghostly mark where he had taken it off. I giggled just as two dozen six-year-olds crossed the foyer and began singing, “Pastor Jane’s got a boyfriend.”

“Want to come for dinner? How about tonight?” I said, talking first and thinking second. As usual.

The guy gulped. “Ah, Preacher, I thought maybe coffee to start.”

“We have coffee. And stop whatever you’re thinking, Mr. Police Officer, Captain Sir. This is not a date. My grandfather, whom you met, and Harmony, the foster child who could have been arrested Saturday, and that dog are all living with me. It’ll be take-out pizza, and we will be watching ESPN, if you like sports, because that’s the only choice in town when my grandfather’s in charge of the set.”

Like locusts, more kids swarmed into the foyer, and their teenage Bible school teachers leaned to listen. Suddenly they were crawling over the top of Tom.

“Can I touch your gun, sir?”

“I want to be a policeman.”

“Can I try on your boots?”

“Let me hold your badge.”

“You killed any people today?”

Tom tried to move but the kids inched closer until there was a deer-in-the-headlights look in the policeman’s eyes.

“Did you arrest Pastor Jane like she got arrested before?”

Tom stood up, towering about the kids. “You were arrested?”

“Misunderstanding,” I gulped as the kids swarmed in an even tighter mass around us grabbing for his badge, his radio and the gun on his hip, and then, in a flash, Tom ran for his life.

Yeah, big, brave police officer. “Hey, mister, welcome to my world,” I yelled to his back, patted some pint-sized heads, and returned to my office, knowing full well I couldn’t go through with having him come to dinner. Cold feet? How about frozen ones? I’d talked to Tom twice, and I’m mortified to admit this to you, but I was mentally flipping through
Bride
. My fingers fished in my purse for his business card. It’d be simple: I’d call and cancel. He’d understand. I found my cell and began popping in the numbers when there was a knock on the partition that was my cubbyhole. I froze. It was Delta Cheney with Vegas’s own Cruella DeVille so close on her heels that when Delta stopped, Cruella bumped into her shoulder.

“Pastor Jane?” Delta said, maybe twice, since my eyes were transfixed on the twosome. Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson dressed from Talbots, and Delta from Fredericks of Hollywood.

Apparently Cruella, impeccable once more, hadn’t made my life miserable enough, so she’d come back for the one-two punch. Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson smiled, but that could have been just to get my guard down.

“May I introduce … ” started Delta.

“We met Saturday,” said the lady who had demanded Harmony’s arrest and who was now all smiles and white teeth. “Did the dog find a home?”

Delta looked from one side of the desk to the other.

“Call me Monica,” and then Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson gave Delta an abbreviated version of our acquaintance, minus her attack on my foster kid.

I smiled. Yeah, but it was because I remembered the horror on her overly nipped and plenty-tucked face when she checked out what wasn’t underneath Tuffy’s little tail. “I’m the girl’s foster mom.”

Delta’s forehead wrinkled, like we were speaking Greek, apparently unable to fathom that her glamour-gal chum and I might move in the same galaxy.

“Forgive me. I’m not usually that rude,” the lady formerly called Cruella DeVille replied. “It was a horrendous day.”

I motioned them to sit. “I’ve had my share that belong in the toilet.”

She took the only chair and Delta hovered. Cruella smiled, seemed to relax and said, “I must explain. My father passed away three weeks ago, and I’d spent all afternoon getting some of his business dealings settled, including his debts, then came home to a message that a medical test I’d just had done had to be repeated. It’s positive. In this case, positive is not good. Then I heard my prize dog had been found. Your family got my wrath.”

“There’s no need to explain.” But I was glad she had.

Delta huffed and puffed. “Darned straight. She doesn’t have to explain anything. To the likes of you.” The final snort from her wide nose nearly knocked me over. Not an attractive sound for anyone, especially a woman of Delta’s size and loudness. “Can we get to business now? We’re busy people, you know, Pastor.” Delta’s bracelets punctuated the end of the sentence. She turned to her friend. “Monica, do you want me to share the fabulous news with her, the, um, pastor?”

She said fabulous like “fab-u-loose,” and with the “um,” I knew she’d nearly called me an underling or lackey. Both were close to the truth.

“I’ll handle this,” said the society matron. While Monica still wore too much blusher, but at least her face wasn’t scarlet like before. “You see, I have a home.”

“Monica. Don’t make your mansion sound like one of those butt-ugly cookie-cutter red-roofed suburban houses.” This time “suburban” sounded like a swear word. “It’s a jewel, over ten thousand square feet. The previous owners were featured in
Architectural Digest
or on the Fine Living Channel,” Delta gushed.

I got the point. It surpassed my cookie-cutter townhouse and my beige, unimportant life. Beyond that, every time Monica talked, Delta interrupted, but as Monica raised one finger, Delta stopped dead cold. I had to remember that.

“Delta, would you be kind enough to get my briefcase from the car. The driver will show you where it is,” Monica said. Like a devoted Pekingese, Delta Cheney jumped, bracelets clanging and clinking, and she was out of the office doing someone else’s bidding.

Monica chuckled. “Delta tends to get excited.”

Wasn’t that the pot calling the fish barrel full? My mouth stayed shut, for once.

Monica cleared her throat, but whispered, “Listen, we don’t have much time. Would you like to have Wayne Newton at the fundraiser?”

“Who wouldn’t?” I might be twenty years or more too young to have heard his music, but everyone in Vegas knew him. The guy loved people, dishing wealth like I added extra scoops to my bowl of Ben & Jerry’s. “There’s no budget for celebrities. I thought we’d get some local support, a discount coupon from restaurants. That kind of stuff.”

“I spoke with his people, and if you can keep this a secret, Pastor, because Wayne doesn’t want to get mobbed when he visits here at the church, I will make it happen. I don’t know if I can get him to dance, but we’ll try.” The woman chuckled and her eyes crinkled at the sides.

I was looking a gift horse in the mouth, but asked, “Why are you doing this?”

She squinted like people do who wear contacts and turned toward the hall. So she didn’t want Delta to hear? That was interesting. “Before I became Mrs. Wainwright-Dobson, I was someone else, very different than what you see today. I was also a foster kid. Through the kindness of strangers, I escaped from what was happening at my biological father’s home, which was everything bad about families and … ” She looked around again. “I inquired about that girl, Harmony, and know her story. There are other kids who have needs. A new youth center isn’t much, but it can be a place to hang out when hanging elsewhere is dangerous.”

“You do understand, ma’am.” I relaxed. The woman didn’t once mention Tom Jones, strobe lights or Britney Spears, although I’m sure Ms. Spears is a delightful young woman. I do like how she dresses, actually.

“You’d better call me Monica since we’re going to work together,” she said as Delta returned and handed her a sleek brown leather case, which Monica placed on top of my desk and didn’t open. Instead she stood, extended her hand and said, “Can we meet sometime soon, say, a few days from now? Would Wednesday work? Why not come to my home, and I can show you some options if you want to have the fundraiser there.”

We three walked toward the lobby. I kept my cool. When Monica’s limo headed out of the church parking lot, I let it loose. I did the moves Petra had attempted to teach me in dance class before Carl’s near-death experience. I twinkled and boogied and twinkled in circles. Around the foyer I tangoed, pretending I was dancing with Wayne Newton. I tapped out a tap dance. I shook my bountiful booty. I belted whatever I could from “Danke Schoen” to “Red Roses for a Blue Lady,” uncaring that I couldn’t carry a tune in a tub. I shrugged my shoulders, threw my buttski and bosom into it, danced as if I could hip-hop and finished three twinkles in a row. I took a breath and wondered if I could still do a cartwheel, like when I was a kid. Heck, no one was around and my world was bloomin’ beautiful and bright. The fundraiser would not be my swan song as an itinerant preacher. The world was my oyster, ostrich, or oboe, it didn’t matter. Monica would make the right event happen. No circus act, but a class act. If Monica and Delta were involved, Pastor Bob would toe the line. Hallelujah and amen, praise it all.

What happened next can totally be blamed on too much coffee, so if you’ve ever thought you’ve had too much, you have. Just a word to the wise on the issue of caffeine.

I backed up to do a cartwheel, put my arms out, ran three steps, and did it. I was amazed that, after all these years, I could still do ’em. Then I bumped straight into legs and plunked on my backside. They were male legs. Strong, male legs, in tan slacks. My eyes went from the polished shoes to the sharp crease in the slacks, up quickly to the belt, and over a broad chest and into the face of Captain Tom Morales.

“Hey, Preacher.” He smiled.

“Hey, Policeman.” I steadied my breathing, but I felt as if I’d just run the Boston Marathon, looking like a moron in preacher’s clothing to the one man who, for some unknown reason, I wanted to impress. We both pretended all was right in my fruit-loop world even after I said, “Did you forget something, Tom?”

He stared down at me. He blinked a few times. “Um, well. Thought you’d want to know that Harmony’s dad is getting out of jail tonight. There’s overcrowding, and he’s only in there for passing bum checks. We in the law enforcement game gotta make room for the more impressive criminals.”

“Oh, well, thanks.” I smoothed my skirt with my hands — yes, I was wearing a crinkly peasant skirt. No comments, please. I had enough horrification to avoid, considering he’d just seen the whole enchilada or maybe more than anyone who isn’t romantically connected should.

He looked around. His face was still straight. If I’d been in his police officer boots, you would’ve seen skid marks on the carpet for how quickly I’d darted out of that foyer. Tom just smiled like I was sane. “Yeah, well, he’s not going straight out on the street because of a probation issue, but to a house for those who are part of a new program. The terms, as I understand them from the district attorney, are that Albert Miller must work in an industry not at all related to gaming for at least six months, or he’s certain to get an all-expenses paid trip to state prison. I’d bet against him if a wager’s involved. It’s a sickness.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest after I pulled up the neck of my gathered blouse that had crept astonishingly down toward my navel, which does not have a stud in it, thank you very much for asking. That aside, the weird thing was that we were having an adult conversation right after my circus act. Had to be that Tom often worked with lunatics. I took a couple of deep breaths, hoping the blaze in my cheeks would pale to a mild magenta. “What else is there around here? Everything is connected with gaming.”